


Build You Up, Break You Down

by bluebells



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angelcest, M/M, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-13
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-26 11:16:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/965306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebells/pseuds/bluebells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a cold, wet Saturday on a Seattle sidewalk and Gabriel should have kept walking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Build You Up, Break You Down

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written [here](http://users.livejournal.com/_bluebells/24322.html) because I couldn't find any multi-archangel adventures at the time, and decided to change that.

The first time Michael saw Gabriel on Earth, there was no recognition.

It wasn’t difficult picking Michael from a crowd on the street; he hadn’t changed since the beginning of time. He was still taller than the rest, his gestures focused and reined with power. There was a distinction to Michael's motion born from his measure of patience matched by only one other.

Michael and Lucifer could war by their mutually infinite fucking patience alone, waiting for the other to blink and break while the rest of the world stood still. That’s how the first act had begun: no swords, no heavenly fire, but millennia’s torture of silence, tension and _nothing_.

Gabriel had no interest in repeating the longest pause in history. He'd already told Sam and Dean that he was tired of waiting.

The world knew who’d lost that staring contest, anyway.

When Michael stepped down to Earth he may as well have poured ice down Gabriel’s neck. His grace was a sonorous beacon to all of his brothers and sisters and Gabriel had looked down that white mountainside in Alaska half-expecting to see Michael standing on the climber’s track behind him.

Michael’s grace muted hours later and Gabriel knew that he had found a vessel.

Gabriel still has the biggest mouth and sharpest tongue of the Heavenly Host, but he’s not God’s voice among humanity anymore.

He’s been a trickster for so long, he isn’t surprised that Michael doesn’t recognise him at the first pass across the street on that late Saturday afternoon.

For a moment Gabriel thinks he’ll get to walk away, but it only takes that moment for Michael to pause, straighten, and turn back on the wet Seattle sidewalk.

It feels like slow motion, but Gabriel’s still not fast enough to fly and Michael’s eyes settle on him even before his head has fully turned. For a long time, Michael simply stares and Gabriel feels every line of his vessel go taut under the blank, unsettling gaze. But then the hazel green eyes of Michael’s vessel softly crinkle with his not-quite-smile and he gently tilts his head in wonder.

It may have been millennia, but Gabriel doesn’t miss the expectation in that greeting.

Michael is waiting to be hailed. Gabriel knows what’ll happen if he does.

Michael was Heaven’s most revered warrior, but Gabriel had more field experience even in the dustier old days. It’s been a while, but he’s confident that he could hold his own; Michael might even break a sweat.

And unlike Michael, Gabriel is ready to fight dirty.

Gabriel is _not_ ready for the next angel who strides from the alley to Michael’s side, tall and familiar blond hair, blue eyes, sliding into Michael’s personal space as if he belongs there.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, Lucifer follows Michael’s gaze and his face lights up with curious delight when he sees Gabriel stock still across the street.

Gabriel swears to himself.

Michael doesn’t look Lucifer’s way, but there’s no way that he can’t know who’s standing beside him.

In an ideal world, Gabriel could humour the idea that Lucifer and Michael had come together to talk of peace at the starting line of the apocalypse. Unfortunately, he knows his brothers and on a cold, wet Saturday, the more likely possibilities send a phantom shiver through him.

Every instinct screams at him to fly, damn the risks.

But he’s certain that the moment he dares to turn away one or both of them will be there, across the street in less than a breath, and he doesn’t want to think about what happens once they get their hands on him. Michael alone would have been survivable, but with their downstairs brother also against him, the odds aren’t in his favour.

And so it was that three arch angels lingered on a Seattle sidewalk, unmoving against the human flow as the day grew steadily colder and darker. He knew that Michael and Lucifer could wait forever if they wanted to.

It turned out they only had to wait until the rain began to fall.

Gabriel could have snapped his fingers when the rain blinded him. In a moment of possibly damning insanity, he blinks instead.

Hands immediately hook through his arms and shoulders from behind, bending him back.

A third hand closes firmly over his neck, forcing his head up and Gabriel looks into Michael’s face as his brother scans him with a critical eye.

“I wondered when I would see you again,” Michael says, and Gabriel feels the huff of Lucifer’s chuckle roll against his ear. “What have you done to yourself, Gabriel?”

It occurs to Gabriel the wiser action would be to keep his mouth shut.

“Candy,” He smirks, though his voice is stiff, “Piles and _mountains_ of cane-sweet hysteria. You might actually lighten up if we got enough into you.”

There’s a small thrill of fear when Michael hums in amusement and his grip shifts to hold Gabriel’s face instead. His hands are soft. His thumbs stroke the skin beneath Gabriel’s ears as Lucifer pulls Gabriel back flush against him, calling to his attention.

“Indulgence, Gabriel – your excess is sin. And that’s mine,” Lucifer smiles, a breathy hiss against the skin of his temple and Gabriel scowls.

Michael pauses his intent search of Gabriel’s face and his green eyes flicker over Gabriel’s shoulder. Whatever he sees in Lucifer’s face produces a slow smile in his customarily blank expression and Gabriel makes the leap from mild worry to genuine concern.

“You want your vessels?” He blurts, calculating the difficulty of locating Castiel at the back of his mind.

Lucifer’s hands tighten around his elbows, held behind his back. “Are you offering to take me to Sam?”

“I’d—“

“Sam isn’t ready for you,” Michael answers immediately, with a soft but pointed look over Gabriel's shoulder suggesting that they’ve had this conversation before. He looks impatient, quietly suffering, when he turns back to Gabriel. “This is our Sabbath, Gabriel, don’t insult us with your distraction.”

Lucifer doesn’t sound the happiest at that response and Gabriel fights not to recoil when the sharp whiskers of his brother's five o’clock shadow roughly nuzzle his ear. Lucifer presses a thumb hard into his tricep and Gabriel's entire body jerks in pain when he drags the rough path of a hidden scar down to his elbow.

He grunts, mouth twisting around the sound and he can feel Lucifer’s smile.

The scar is from an old wound that had gone so deep, through skin, flesh, even searing his grace and Michael had never quite let it heal. It manifested in every vessel Gabriel took since that first experiment and Lucifer remembered, the spiteful bastard.

“You’re lucky it’s my day off,” Lucifer says, but somehow Gabriel can’t agree.

“What would those boys think if they knew you tried to barter them?” Michael wonders aloud.

Gabriel doesn’t have to wonder, but he's still flushing, breathing hard when he answers.

“Business as usual. I don’t take sides, Michael.”

“Ah, you’re a coward,” Lucifer hums, hands snaking around Gabriel’s front to dig fingers into his sternum through the open jacket. It’s a superficial hurt, not really one he can feel like the scar, but with his arms pinned to his sides, Gabriel really wishes Lucifer would just keep his hands to himself.

“I’m on _my_ side,” Gabriel corrects and cranes his head away when Lucifer drops his chin to his shoulder.

He doesn’t remember Lucifer being this physical before.

The pit must really change people, but it hasn’t changed his _touch_ , it’s still slow, heavy and possessive. It’s not love in Lucifer’s affections and in a split second Gabriel decides that he will rake Sam Winchester through the crushing valleys of the deepest oceans if he _ever_ says yes to this brother.

Michael releases a long sigh, the not-quite-smile is back, bitter, and he shakes his head.

“Gabriel… you’ve changed.”

Gabriel falls completely still, his attention going to Michael’s mouth when he leans in and Lucifer doesn’t let him forget he’s there with the rough, scraping drag of his cheek against Gabriel’s neck. Michael presses his finger to halt any quip and whispers, warm breath rolling against Gabriel’s lips.

“Coward.”

Gabriel tears his eyes up at the echo of Dean's accusation and his stomach clenches at the pity and disgust in Michael's gaze, the squeeze of Lucifer's hold. It stings hearing Michael spit that most detested word, once unutterable amongst their ranks for shame of its stigma when the war began.

At the time, the only course worse than joining Lucifer had been to stand aside.

To be without a higher mission, without purpose, honour or righteousness, his brothers sound like they’re already in mourning for him. He wants to protest that he hasn’t passed, that they have no idea what he’s still capable of….

The indignation swiftly dies when he sees a terrible, familiar light in Michael’s eyes.

“But we can make you brave again,” Michael promises, gently.

Gabriel's already shaking his head, "N--"

Michael’s eyes flash green to silver, Lucifer’s hands burn against his skin and, as his knees buckle with a whine in his throat, Gabriel remembers why he left Heaven.


End file.
